Putting our words to work: rethinking Teacher Talking Time
English Language Teaching loves a good acronym. There’s ELT to begin with and then, of course, there’s EFL – English
Read more.8th May 2018
Putting your principles into practice: lexical teaching in the age of eclecticism
Eclectic or just confused? As teachers, we’re often told that we’re now living in a post-method world and that we
Read more.26th April 2018
From student writer to subject authority: a social semiotic approach to EAP
In this post, I shall be proposing that an exploration of the positioning of writers within texts, coupled with an
Read more.16th April 2018
Teaching deaf, hard of hearing and visually impaired students
As someone who spends a fair amount of time meeting and working with teachers in different contexts, I get asked
Read more.14th February 2018
Grammar nonsense 6: future forms
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that EFL students attending a class must be in want of a good grammar
Read more.23rd January 2018
Complicating the coursebook debate: part 4
In this post, I’m going to look at how I would use the material from Outcomes Intermediate that I mentioned
Read more.28th October 2017
On the over-use of concept-checking questions: part 2
I recently wrote a post outlining why I’m not a fan of using concept-checking questions – CCQs – when dealing
Read more.13th October 2017
On the over-use of concept-checking questions: part 1
There aren’t many things that I think should be comprehensively banned from EFL classrooms, but the use of closed CCQs
Read more.6th October 2017
Something better change: taking a stand against gender bias in ELT
Earlier this year I spoke at the very first International Language Symposium in Brno, the second-biggest city in the Czech
Read more.22nd September 2017
Grammar nonsense 5 (and some curiosities): indirect questions
I can’t quite decide if the EFL view of indirect questions is pure foolishness or more a question of a
Read more.26th May 2017